Since first showing early builds of Windows 8 to the world on June 1, Microsoft's team has been spoon-feeding the public details about the OS every few days via its Building Windows 8 blog. But next week at the company's newly minted BUILD conference in Anaheim, we may hit pay dirt with some form of a complete OS release.
What clues has Microsoft given in its discussion of the BUILD show? At June's All Things D show, Redmond said that "although we have much more to reveal at our developer event, BUILD (Sept. 13 - 16 in Anaheim, Calif.), we're excited to share our progress with you." And at the simultaneous unveiling at Taipei's Computex trade show, it said "to aid developers in building applications for the new operating system, Microsoft formally opened registration for its new developer conference, BUILD."
It would be hard for developers to target apps for the new operating system without some version of Windows 8 on which to run them. Windows 8 will run both a new style app and the traditional Windows programs. The newfangled lightweight apps will be written using Web technologies like JavaScript and HTML5 and run on top of the Internet Explorer 10 browser. So perhaps we'll just get a closer version of Internet Explorer 10, though that seems unlikely. Perhaps we'll get a "Platform Preview" type build of Windows 8, as Microsoft did with Internet Explorer 9 before its release.
In his latest blog post on Building Windows 8, the president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, Steven Sinofsky, wrote, "We see a new platform, a reimagining of Windows. For Windows 8, Metro style means a new type of app—an app that learns from and improves upon the current (and most popular) platform. This is a lot of what we’ll talk about at BUILD." Later, he added, "I think we need to do more in terms of showing the product and maybe we erred on the side of too much transparency too soon, but we’re on board and moving forward. BUILD is just a few days away." Both of these make it sound like we'll get more than a platform preview.
The Windows 7 Precedent
For some insight into the Windows release process, Microsoft's handling of Windows 7's birth may shed some light.
The company first released a pre-beta version to attendees of its PDC conference in late October 2008. Microsoft only released the actual beta to the public a little over two months later in early January, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This was followed four months later by a publicly available Release Candidate in early May, and then the final RTM (release to manufacture) three months later on August 6. A similar schedule for Windows 8 would be reasonable, though we're getting an earlier start with BUILD in mid-September.
So it's possibly if not likely that only conference attendees will receive the operating system software at first. Peer-to-peer sites will no doubt make copies available to enthusiasts, and Microsoft will probably make the pre-release available on its MSDN developer site before a public release.
What Can You Do With Pre-release Windows?
Microsoft has made a big deal about Windows 8's suitability for touch tablets and the new-style lightweight Web-like apps. In fact, both public demonstrations have featured touch tablets. Microsoft clearly has the iPad's explosive popularity in its sights. But Windows 8 will include plenty of good new stuff for standard laptops and towers. As documented on the Building Windows 8 blog posts, the new operating system will get a new Windows Explorer sporting the Office-style ribbon interface, new file management dialogs, support for USB 3.0, an app store (though it's not clear whether this will just be for new-style apps), and the ability to mount ISO and VHD files.
Whatever Microsoft decides to release next week, you can be sure that we'll have a much better idea of how this radically different operating system looks and works. You can also be sure that PCMag will have all the details and analysis to get you up to speed on what comes out of Anaheim. We'll be there to put Windows 8 through its paces and keep you informed. Until then, check out our "Windows 8: What We Know So Far" slideshow above.
For more from Michael, follow him on Twitter @mikemuch.